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led the children of Israel through the Red Sea and through the wilderness,
and which betokened God's immediate presence. The Jewish commentator Rabbi
Solomon Yarhi, known under the surname Rashi, says that 'the Lord' here is 'the
God of Judgement'. The celebrated Jewish commentator, Rabbi David Qimhi,
explains 'the Lord' as 'the King Messiah'. These explanations are in accordance
with the New Testament, as we now proceed to show, and they clearly set forth
the Deity of the Messiah.
The Lord Jesus Christ himself in the Gospel explains the first part of the
verse, telling his disciples 1 that it referred to John the Baptist.
The same thing is stated by St. Mark 2 in his Gospel. Now Zacharias,
the father of John the Baptist, was filled 3 with the holy spirit and
prophesied regarding his son John, saying:—
Thou, 4 child, shalt be called the prophet of the Most High:
For thou shalt go before the face of the Lord to make ready his way.
Here we find not only the statement that John the Baptist is the messenger
spoken of by the prophet Malachi, but also the declaration that the person whose
ways he is to prepare is 'the Lord'
(الرّبّ). That this is true is evident from the
passage of Malachi which we are considering, for the speaker
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PROOF OF THE DEITY OF CHRIST |
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there is 'the Lord of hosts,' and He says of John the Baptist, 'He shall
prepare the way before me'. The person whose way John the Baptist did
actually prepare, as we have already seen, was the Lord Jesus Christ, 1
the Word of God. The inference is obvious.
Having now considered the testimony of the law
(التوراة) and the prophets, we turn
to the Psalms. 2 From them we content ourselves with quoting only
three passages.
The first of these is from the second Psalm, where it is written:—
I 3 will tell of the decree:
The LORD said unto me, Thou art my Son;
This day have I begotten thee.
Ask of me, and I will give thee the nations for thine inheritance,
And the uttermost parts of the earth for thy possession.
Kiss the Son, lest he be angry, and ye perish in the way.
That this refers to the Lord Jesus Christ is clear from the New Testament,
where in three 4 different passages the words, 'Thou art my Son; this
day have I begotten thee', are quoted, and are said to have been used about Him,
to imply His eternal ازلي) existence in the past, and to be proved by His
resurrection from the dead. Rabbi Solomon Yarhi says that the older Jewish
commentators used to
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